Hahah, so similar to what I'm doing to my essay right now: wrote a new (expanded) outline, rearranged what I alread had, right now filling in the missing bits to strengthen my argument (& illustrative quotes), then will go over everything again, taking out the phrases I dislike and generally tightening up, word count, spruce up a bit, etc pp.

Oh, and:Even though it seems to be targeted at kids, try and check out Keri Smith's Finish This Book.Lots of lovely creative exercises to refocus your mind & try different perspectives & generally have fun experimenting.

Finally kicked myself some more and got some more (re)writing done. The newly restructured paper is getting more and more coherent. I'm beginning to worry I might end up with a word count that's actually too high, so I'll definitely have to re-tighten everything once I think I'm done. And all the different style sheets are beginning to drive me mad. Will have to plan an additional day just for checking everything, including citations. Bleh.On the upside, I really love this paper that I'm working on right now. It's beginning to really say something.

^Mine, too, phoenix (getting some rererewriting done today, too, I mean). Editing is everything! That's where 90% of the work gets done in my experience.

My story's really coming along and I'm relatively happy with it now. Just typing up another revision. The story is set, the characters are fine, I added some necessary exposition in some too-brusque paragraphs that could potentially throw the pacing off and now I think it's all pretty well finished and paced out. Just gonna keep it and read it over the next few days to make sure it holds up and do whatever final polishing and clarifying fuzzy parts and rewrite any sloppy sentences I've missed, sort of thing.

Sending off the story I wrote today. I've never written a story in a week that wasn't like, flash fiction or really short. This one is ~3000 words so a pretty standard length short story. I did at least one revision every single day since I wrote it, so it's been well worked over. I like it, it's flawed but that's to be expected. It can either be read as fantastical or not, it might not be speculative fiction enough for that reader base but the good news is, if the science fic mags reject it, I can try literary magazines because it sort of straddles the line and I could see it going into a literary publication, too. That might, actually, be one of its problems in terms of finding a home for it--it might be not enough of the genre for one readership and too much for the other.

I'm so sick of reading it, I lost the pleasure in the story very early on as I always do and I want to run screaming from the room every time I read a phrase from it because I'm sick to death of it, but I'm aware that when I read it as objectively as possible, it flows well, is entertaining (or once was to me anyway before I got sick of it) and has the requisite parts of what makes a readable and (hopefully!) enjoyable story. Hope the editors like it!

Whatever happens with it, this is my first writing piece for 2013 so I'm pleased that I've started off the year well creatively.

When I was sitting in the chair at the dentist's yesterday, I let my mind wander to my totally-stuck-story. And I had a simple little spark of an idea that might make a bunch of stuff suddenly make sense.

I'm so glad, footie! Sometimes, just one unifying idea can tie the whole thing together. Now get to work on it! *kick*

Weird, I was at the dentist yesterday, too. I love how those ideas sometimes happen randomly and wherever, and it's always awesome, especially when it revitalizes a project you've all but given up on because you can't "work it out" or you've painted yourself into a corner or whatever. <3

I've made a lot of progress myself. I'm currently checking references and re-reading the paper. I don't think there's much left to change. Just over 6000 words including bibliography, too. Might send it off tomorrow - so I can start working on the next project(s).

Besides, an editor suggested a topic for me to write on (implying she'd be interested in publishing it if it turns out readable). So with all these potential publications, my creative writing projects seem to move further and further away from me...

It's really hard finding time for creative projects when you're doing professional projects, phoenix. That's why I've never pursued writing columns, blogs, ghostwriting, etc, or other jobs I could probably potentially do/be qualified for. It would sap my creative energy for my own stuff to expend it on someone else's, I think.

Anyhoo, I did reorganize my novel manuscript this morning. It's daunting, tons of work and is intimidating but I have to start wading through it. It will be difficult this week as I have extra work to do that kind of cuts into my writing time in the mornings so hopefully I can really sink my teeth in next week. I think I'll spend the rest of this week just reading what I have so far (which is considerable--it's probably about 300 pages) and taking measure of where the story is, where it's going and the characters thus far and then next week, hopefully, start rewriting or editing it and do what I can with it to pull it together over the next few months. With maybe some short stories or poems interspersed to break the tension from that. My goal is to really work on the novel pretty exclusively from now until the end of March or April (depending on how it's going) and hopefully have the story worked out in a solid draft that knows where it's going by the spring then I can work further from there. I know where it's going in my head but working that out on paper scene by scene is the challenge. Onward for all of us! <3

Worked on a section of my novel today that while I'm not sure any of it will make the final cut, it's background development in the sense that if I know the backstory of my own story, even if it doesn't actually appear in the final version of the novel, it's fine for me to work it all out so I understand the underlying machinations and understand why particular characters critical to that part of the story will be depicted a certain way. In other words, it's helping along in the overall development.

Also, working really hard on making my characters likeable and interesting and developing each one individually. I always worry that all my characters are really one person and that might be the case but I'm working on it, trying to develop an awareness about it and steer away from that. I know one thing about books: if I like a story but not the characters, I might not finish the book, but if I like the characters enough, I'll follow them through pretty much any story because that makes any book worth reading. Characters! They're critical.

This is a perfectly normal reaction, footie. I know it well. Sometimes when I read my stuff, I think to myself "I should leave these pages out so the cat can vomit on it," because it would make a fitting commentary. But then it would be gross when I go back to fix those pages so I'm always glad that never actually happens. Just throw up in your mouth a little, gulp it back down and say "Onward!"

I wrote three (three!) ~300 word abstracts yesterday between finishing copy-reading a really extensive thing (for work) and organising a film screening (for the course I co-teach). I didn't even feel a bit tired. Some days... I don't know how I'm doing it, but hey, I'm clearly getting it done!

^Woot! I'm just pooped today and really need a nap but I edited a few pages and just, you know, keep plowing through. I figure if I keep doing this an end will come at some point in the distant future.

Still working, bit by bit and day by day. Not working chronologically right now, just rewriting the parts I like and seeing what comes of them. No more Nano-style writing, I think the usefulness of that sort of writing has passed for this manuscript. The things I pursue now need to be more solid and thoughtfully written. It's slower-going but hopefully will hold up or will lead me closer in that direction. The basic idea I worked with for the second round of Nano is what I'm still working with but I took it down the wrong path here and there during Nano and I have to rewrite most if not all of it.

Chip, chip, chipping away. Have revised about one-quarter of my manuscript now, but major, major, major work still needed. The good news is more and more of the stuff I'm adding seems keeperish now and less and less throwaway, like I'm developing some solid stuff to work with. My characters are deepening, less caraicature-ish (sp?) and maybe even more human (but they're still pretty caricatureish, have to get away from that) and I'm knowing them more and more. Progress! And I might be the kind of writer whose characters appear in other books, but the books themselves are not necessarily related (my material is mostly speculative fiction--or at least for the novel and novella, so this isn't as weird as it sounds). I say this because I have a character from a novella I drafted maybe one chapter of a year ago and now he's in this book. I haven't officially introduced him yet, just keep mentioning him relative to another character whose life he's in and I already feel he'll make a great addition to this story and give my main character impetus to change--otherwise, she'd have just remained stagnant without him. He'll help me get her away from her current cariacture-ness, I think. But in the novel, he has his own story unrelated to his novella but he's the same guy with the same MO and so on.

Anyone else have recurring characters in their stuff? I'm really not trying to do this, it just seems like a good idea and I don't think it's a bad thing. I notice I often call my male characters Carl or Charles (in other stuff I've written) and I don't even know any Carlses or Charles. I just think of a character's name and that feels right, sort of thing. But why do Carls and Charles feel right when I don't even know any IRL? Weird.

Today my boss gave his okay to my plan of taking 3 weeks off the day job to work on my big book project. I know I could use the free time (my last holiday was almost a year ago, and that was just a long weekend), but I simply must try and meet my self-imposed deadline. Also, I'm really looking forward to doing this.And once I'm done, I'll seriously go back to writing fiction. Last week someone who doesn't even know me that well basically told me to "go ahead and write a bestseller" - so a friend and I made up an improvised post-apocalyptic YA supernatural romance over a couple of beers, and it was such fun! I miss having that much fun. I'm not going to write that silly thing we invented, but I promise myself to have more fun writing. :)

So I was working on a poem the other day and had a certain enthusiasm, as I always do, at the outset. I wrote and wrote, had a nice full page of lines, found some problems with it (it was more like two poems, I was writing on two different matters) so I cut out the stuff that seemed to pertain to something else and then I looked at what was left and tried to work with that, going line by line, putting things in order but every line was weak, weak, weak (so slash, slash, slash) and I slashed it all away and now the poem is gone, there are no words left.

Sometimes I just look at my stuff and think I should cut -this-this-this-this and slash/slash/slash goes my pen until I've crossed out everything on the page and there's nothing left. Blank page, back at square one!

It's still a relief to work out an idea though, even when it doesn't work or, more accurately, I can't make it work. And sometimes, I can pick it up again and work something out in the future. I know what this poem was trying to say but I think it's been said, and better, by others so I should just leave myself to my queer brainstorms and work them out.

Now I'm totally intersecting the characters from my novel and an earlier novella, which I always considered totally separate entities from each other, but now they're together in the same work and it might be a good idea. Don't know yet. This mixture pushes the story more into the realm of scifi/speculative fiction than I'm used to, but that might be okay, too. Don't know yet. I think I missed the characters from my novella, I actually think of them a lot and really want to write about them but they're just supporting characters here, giving my main characters impetus and drive and a new point of view. The chapter I wrote this morning is my novella characters gearing up to meet my novel characters and soon worlds will collide! This novel isn't really working out how I envisioned it at the outset but if I've learned one thing about writing, it's that you have to go in whatever direction where things ignite, even if that doesn't serve your original vision.

That sounds absolutely exciting, seitanicverses! (And I'm not just saying that because I really like speculative fiction...)

I've managed to integrate all my notes & scribbles and am currently working on 3 things simultaneously. Whenever an idea presents itself, I just open the respective file and continue on that. I've never done that before, and it does feel chaotic, but I think I'm getting things done! Trying to finish the first of the smaller projects tomorrow, so I can immerse myself in the project that feels most important to me, and most personal.

That's how I write too. I used to think I had to do it chronologically, you know, write beginning, middle and end but that's not always the case. I spent the last month writing the middle of my book and now I've turned my attention back to what might be the beginning. But anyway, I'm totally on board with however it gets done, gets it done! Also, working on different projects simultaneously sustains your interest in all of them and when you hit a snag on one, turn to the other until that hits a snag, turn back to the first where your mind is fresh again. Yeah, whatever works!

I couldn't find a "show us your creative writing" thread in the basement, and I didn't feel like making one just for my amateurish scribbles... but if you're interested in the story that (so far) everyone loved but nobody wanted, click on the link to my blog. (I thought you ppkers might like it. My test reader, SoS, gave me some great feedback back then. Yeah, I can get pretty passionate about [not eating] amazing deep-sea creatures.)